Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 35

"He thinks I regret the loss of Wyncote, and that I would like to have it. I am afraid I found it pleasant to say so, seeing that it annoyed him."

"I wish he may have some such cause to hate you, and no other. But why?

Your grandfather made a legal conveyance of an unentailed property, got some ready money,--how much I never knew,--and came away. How can you interfere with Arthur? The Wynnes, I have heard, have Welsh memories for an insult. You struck him once."

"The blow!" and I smiled. "Yes; the woman! Pray G.o.d it be that. The estate--he is welcome to it. I hardly think a Welsh home would bribe me to leave my own country. But I do not see, aunt, why you so often talk as if Wyncote were ours, and stolen from us. I do not want it, and why should I?"

"Is not that unreasonable, Hugh?" she returned, with more quietness in the way of reply than was usual when she was arguing. "You are young now. The anger between England and ourselves makes all things in Great Britain seem hateful to you, to me, to all honest colonials; but this will not last. Peace will come one day or another, and when it does, to be Wynne of Wyncote--"

"Good gracious, Aunt Gainor! let us set this aside. Arthur Wynne's lies have stirred us all to think there must be some reason for such a keen desire to mislead me, you, and my father--above all, my father. But it is my father's business, not mine; nor, if I may be excused, is it yours."

"That is true, or would be if your father were well or interested. He is neither--neither; and there is something in the matter. I shall ask my brother."

"You have done that before."

"I have, but I got nothing. Now he is in such a state that he may be more free of speech. I think he could be got to tell me what neither he nor my own father liked to speak of."

Upon this, I told my aunt that I did trust she would not take advantage of my father's weak mind to get that which, when of wholesome wits, he had seen fit to conceal. I did not like it.

"Nonsense!" she cried, "nonsense! if you could have the old home--"

"But how can I? It is like promising fairy gold, and I don't want it. I should like to go there once and see it and my cousins, and come home to this country."

I was, in fact, weary of the thing, and my aunt would have talked it over all day. She could not see why I was so set in my mind. She kept urging that something would turn up about it, and we should have to act; then I would change my mind. I hardly knew why that which once had been a delightful and mysterious bait now lured me not at all. What with the great war, and my own maturity, and Darthea, Wyncote had shrunken out of the world of my desires. It was too dreamy a bribe for one of my turn of mind. I would have given half Wales for an hour alone with Arthur Wynne.

Then through my meditations I heard, "Well, mark my word, Master Absolute; there is some flaw in their t.i.tle, and--and soon or late--"

"Oh, please, aunt--"

"Well, do not make up your mind. I am afraid of you when you make up your mind. You are as set in your ways as your father. Do you remember what Nicholas Wain said of him: 'When John Wynne puts down his foot, thou hast got to dig it up to move him'?"

She was right; nor did I defend myself. I laughed, but was sad too, thinking of my poor old father, whom I could not see, and of how far he was now from being what his friend had described.

I said as much. My aunt replied, "Yes, it is too true; but I think he is less unhappy, and so thinks Dr. Rush."

After this our talk drifted away, and my aunt would once more hear of my note in McLane's name left for the Hessian general. "I hope yet to ask him of it," she cried, "and that dear Mr. Andre--I can see his face. It is the French blood makes him so gentle. Catch him for me in the war.

I should like to have him on parole for a sixmonth." And at this she laughed, and heartily, as she did most things.

When this talk occurred we were in a great front room in the second story. There was a deep bow--window to westward, and here my aunt liked to be at set of sun, and to look over what seemed to be a boundless forest; for the many scattered farms were hid away in their woodland shelters, so that from this vantage of height it looked as though the country beyond might be one great solitude. Nearer were well-tilled farms, on which the snow still lay in melting drifts.

As we sat, I was smoking the first tobacco I had had since I left the jail. This habit I learned long before, and after once falling a captive to that consoler and counsellor, the pipe, I never gave it up. It is like others of the good gifts of G.o.d: when abused it loses its use, which seems a silly phrase, but does really mean more than it says. Jack hath somewhere writ that words have souls, and are always more than they look or say. I could wish mine to be so taken. And as to tobacco and good rum, Jack said--but I forget what it was--something neat and pretty and honest, that took a good grip of you. The tricks an old fellow's memory plays him are queer enough. I often recall the time and place of something clever a friend hath said long ago, but when I try to get it back, I have but a sense of its pleasantness, as of a flavour left in the mouth, while all the wise words of his saying are quite forgot. Dr.

Rush thinks that we are often happy or morose without apparent cause, when the mind is but recalling the influence of some former joy or grief, but not that which created either. The great doctor had many hard sayings, and this was one.

As I sat reflecting, I felt a sudden consciousness of the pleasure my tobacco gave, and then of how delightful it was to be, as it were, growing younger day by day, and of how, with return of strength, came a certain keenness of the senses as to odours, and as to what I ate or drank. It seemed to me a kind of reward for suffering endured with patience.

My Aunt Gainor sat watching me with the pleasure good women have over one too weak to resist being coddled. When I had come to this happy condition of wanting a pipe, as I had jolted out of my pouch the tobacco I stole, she went off and brought the good weed out of the barn, where she had saved her last crop under what scant hay the Hessian foragers left her. I must smoke in her own library, a thing unheard of before; she loved to smell a good tobacco.

"O Aunt Gainor!"

"But Jack!" she said. She did not like to see Jack with a pipe. He looked too like a sweet girl, with his fair skin and his yellow hair.

I smoked on in mighty peace of mind, and soon she began again, being rarely long silent, "I hope you and your cousin will never meet, Hugh."

The suddenness of this overcame me, and I felt myself flush.

"Ah!" she said, "I knew it. There is little love lost between you."

"There are things a man cannot forgive."

"Then may the good G.o.d keep you apart, my son."

"I trust not," said I. "I can forgive an insult, even if I am Welsh and a Wynne; but oh, Aunt Gainor, those added weeks of misery, foulness, filth, and pain I owe to this man! I will kill him as I would kill any other vermin." Then I was ashamed, for to say such things before women was not my way.

"I could kill him myself," said my aunt, savagely. "And now do have some more of this nice, good gruel," which set me to laughing.

"Let him go," said I, "and the gruel too."

"And that is what you must do, sir. You must go. I am all day in terror."

And still I stayed on, pretty easy in mind; for my aunt had set a fellow on watch at Mount Airy, to let us know if any parties appeared, and we kept Lucy saddled. I sorely needed this rest and to be fed; for I was a mere shadow of my big self when I alighted at her door on that memorable 20th of February.

The day before I left this delightful haven between jail and camp, came one of my aunt's women slaves with a letter she had brought from the city, and this was what it said:

"DEAR MISTRESS WYNNE: At last I am honoured with the permission to write and tell you that Mr. Hugh Wynne is alive. It was cruel that the general would not earlier grant me so small a favour as to pa.s.s an open letter; but Arthur found much difficulty, by reason, I fear, of your well-known opinions. He was on the way to the jail when he heard of Mr. Hugh Wynne's having escaped, after dreadfully injuring the poor man who took such good care of him all winter. How it came that he lay five months in this vile abode neither Arthur nor I can imagine, nor yet how he got out of the town.

"Arthur tells me that insolent rebel, Allan McLane, broke into your house and stole the beautiful sword the Elector of Hesse gave to General von Knyphausen, and what more he took the Lord knows. Also he left an impudent letter. The general will hang him whenever he catches him; but there is a proverb: perhaps it is sometimes the fish that is the better fisherman.

"I have a queer suspicion as to this matter, and as to the mare Lucy being stolen. I am so glad it is I that have the joy to tell you of Mr.

Hugh Wynne's safety; and until he returns my visit, and forever after, I am, madam,

"Your devoted, humble servant,

"DARTHEA.

"To Mad(e) Wynne, "At the Hill Farm, "Chestnut Hill."

My aunt said it was sweet and thoughtful of Darthea, and we had a fine laugh over the burglary of that bad man, McLane. The woman went back with two notes st.i.tched into the lining of her gown; one was from, my aunt, and one I wrote; and to this day Darthea alone knows what it said.

G.o.d bless her!

It was March 20 of '78 before I felt myself fully able to set out for camp. I had run no great risk. The country had been ravaged till it was hard to find a pig or a cow. Farmers were on small rations, and the foragers had quit looking for what did not exist. One dull morning I had the mare saddled, and got ready to leave. It was of a Friday I went away; my aunt as unwilling to have me set out as she had been eager to have me go the day before. My Quaker training left me clear of all such nonsense, and, kissing the dear lady, I left her in tears by the roadside.

XIX

It is a good eighteen-mile ride to Valley Forge over the crooked Perkiomen road, which, was none the better for the breaking up of the frost. I rode along with a light heart, but I was watchful, being so used to disastrous adventures. Happily, I met with no difficulties.